Ergonomic Aspects of Operation of IT Systems in Precision Agriculture

The operation of IT systems is a sine qua non condition in precision agriculture. In the traditional approach, professional competencies of a farmer comprise the ability to operate machines and technical equipment in production technologies for biological raw materials. Precision agriculture increases this range of professional competencies with the ability to use computer IT systems that are complex and, by their very nature, much differing in their content and scope from typical farming knowledge. The ergonomic problem can be brought down to determination whether the operation of IT systems in precision agriculture is adjusted to the predispositions, needs and skills of the farmers. Generally, in the IT system of precision agriculture, three phases can be differentiated： data collection, processing and application. To what extent should they be operated by the farmer, and to what extent by the IT specialist, is the problem that determines effective functioning of precision farming. The ergonomic assessment of some software for equipment operation, generation of harvesting maps and applications points to： （1） the need for standardisation in construction and operation of IT systems; （2） the division of the function-farmer and IT specialist （e.g. from an agriculture consulting institution） in the precision agriculture system.

Ontology-Based Semantic Multi-agent Framework for Micro-grids with Cyber Physical Concept

The distributed hierarchical control based on multi-agent system(MAS) is the main control method of micro-grids.By allowing more flexible interactions between computing components and their physical environments,cyber physical system(CPS) presents a new approach for the distributed hierarchical engineering system,with micro-grids included.The object of this paper is to integrate the CPS concept with MAS technology and propose a new control framework for micro-grids.With the analysis of the operating mode and control method of micro-grids,the cyber physical control concepts of ontologybased semantic agent are discussed.Then an MAS-based architecture of cyber physical micro-grid system and an intelligent electronic device(IED) function structure are proposed.Finally,in order to operate and test the cyber physical micro-grid concept,an integrated simulation model is presented.